I have had an 800 series Roomba for the last 5 yrs and while I love it to keep our dog and cat hair fluff down, I really wanted an improvement. I also went in to this investment after doing A LOT of research, and I knew full well the mopping feature on the S5 Max was not much to write home about. If I could have gotten this model without mopping and a bigger bin I would have (I considered the S4 but needed a couple of the features on the S5 Max and no better bin).Initial review after a week of testing in our home:Battery Life: One problem with our older bot is that although it had great suction, it's battery life did not do well on the extra thick carpet in our bedrooms. The s5 max out of the box can do 95% of our 2100 sq feet ranch on one charge (half hardwood half thick carpet/rugs). I don't need it to do the entire house (closets included) every day, so it manages our daily needs on one charge.Intelligence/Capabilities: I have been impressed at the s5 max's ability to work out problems, map and maneuver over a very thick rugs edge. It sometimes has to take a couple tries to get on our living room rug, but it figures it out. It also knows what is a rug and what is hard floor, and for thicker rugs, it will do the hard wood around it, THEN, get up on the rug and clean just the rug. This is definitely some advanced programming that I appreciate. It sometimes gets a little confused around some chair legs, but it figures it out and I have yet to have to get it unstuck from anything and it manages the stair edge no problem. One SMALL knock, it goes around the room initially on a cleaning making a quick map, so if you move a chair or dog bed mid cleaning, it doesn't adjust and clean the newly opened space later on. It does seem a LITTLE off on our map, like it tracks at a very slight angle to the walls, but the laundry room it starts from is at a 45 degree angle from the rest of the house, so I am probably going to redo the map based on a more square starting point (you can see its a bit askew in the map photo).Dustbin: This would be one knock on the S5max over our old roomba, the size of the bin is about HALF that of the roomba. That said, it has two things going for it even with a small bin. It compacts the fluff better then the roomba did (even super full it hasn't asked me to empty it), second, because it works better then my roomba in mapping and battery life, I am able to clean the carpeted areas more often. SO, after it ran a couple full circuits of the house, now I don't have to empty the bin mid cycle anymore. We have a yellow lab, and the hair that comes off that dog is insane, but as long as I stay up on the cycles it doesn't overflow.Cleaning Accuracy/suction: The mapping program and the cleaning ability is awesome. I am always impressed every time it runs at just how clean and thorough it was (although to be fair, my previous roomba did not have laser mapping and just bounced around the room for awhile hoping to cover most of it, so my expectations were low). The amount of dust and hair it gets out of our carpet is BETTER then my house cleaner's vacuum, I am definitely impressed. Just running this thing daily has made my house feel SO much cleaner with 4 animals about.Mopping: I had pretty low expectations on this option going in to it, had hoped it wasn't warranted, but alas, its pretty pitiful. I could probably tie a wet rag to the back of my ankle while I walk around and clean about as good. The pad doesn't make sense, the soft part doesn't cover the full width of the bot, and its not very 'plush', so it doesn't absorb the water well and disperse it over the pad, so it just puts wet stripes on the floor rather then a true full width section of pad. I will keep testing it, but this might be something I don't use much (or for a very small area where I tell it to run 3-4 times over). Small Update: After washing the pad it seems to absorb a bit better and streak less, but still not super useful.App: The app is fairly easy to use. It could use a few extra features, would love to be able to program say room cleaning in a particular order rather then just one at a time. But I do love the no go zones and such, less picking up for me to have to do. I am still learning some of the features, but overall its okay.Noise: Noise wise, it might be a hair better then my roomba, but it is still a vacuum. I don't run it at night, but we have 4 animals and a kid, so I prefer to walk the house and pick up before hitting the go button.Maintenance: It definitely tangles up WAY more of my long hair in the rollers then the roomba rubber ones, but the little cleaning tool built in is handy. So expect to have to clean that up quite often. I cannot speak to the filter endurance yet.Overall, I am VERY happy. If the mopping feature had any benefit it would be 5 stars. I will update if anything changes!(ps....my cat is very unhappy he cannot ride this one like the roomba. The center height sensor and lasers do NOT like him sitting on top for a ride so it usually tells me to come rescue it or just moves back and forth trying to figure out where to go)